THE NEW THEORY OF ACIIILLES'S SHIELD. 333 



work, however, and brought in by him in the only 

 way he found available. The description clearly re- 

 fers to the same object which is described (here, also, 

 only in part) in the " Shield of Hercules." The 

 original description, doubtless, included all that is 

 found in both " shields," and probably much more. 



"What, then, was the object to which the original 

 description applied ? An object, I should think, far 

 more important than a warrior's shield. I imagine 

 that any one who should read the description with- 

 out being aware of its accepted interpretation would 

 consider that the poet was dealing with an important 

 series of religious sculptures, possibly that he was de- 

 scribing the dome of a temple adorned with celestial 

 and terrestrial symbols. 



In Egypt there are temples of a vast antiquity, 

 having a dome, on which a zodiac or, more correctly, 

 a celestial hemisphere is sculptured with constella- 

 tion-figures. And we now learn, from ancient Baby- 

 lonian and Assyrian sculptures, that these Egyptian 

 zodiacs are in all probability merely copies (more or 

 less perfect) of yet more ancient Chaldean zodiacs. 

 One of these Babylonian sculptures is figured in 

 Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies." It seems prob- 

 able that in a country where Sabaeanism, or star-wor- 

 ship, was the prevailing form of religion, yet more 

 imposing proportions would be given to such zodiacs 

 than in Egypt. 



